1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image recording device that exposes an image recording material to form a latent image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, printing devices that utilize digital exposure, namely, digital photoprinters, have been made practicable. In the digital photoprinters, an image recorded on a photographic film is read photoelectrically, the read image is converted into a digital signal and the digital signal is subjected to various image processing whereby image data for recording is generated. An image recording material (photosensitive material) is scan-exposed with light beams modulated on the basis of the image data to form an image (latent image). The image recording material is developed and processed, and a print (photograph) is outputted.
In the digital photoprinter, gradation correction is carried out by processing the read image (digital signal) to determine conditions for the image recording material. Thus, editing of a print image, such as synthesizing many images or dividing images, and various types of image processing, including color/density adjustment and edge enhancement, can be performed freely. Namely, a print that has been image-processed freely in accordance with the application to which it is to be put can be outputted.
Further, in the digital photoprinter, image data of the printed image can be supplied to a computer or the equivalent or can be stored in a storage medium, such as a floppy disk. Moreover, the digital photoprinter can output a print having superior resolution, color/density reproducibility and image quality in comparison to a print obtained by conventional direct exposure.
The digital photoprinter basically comprises an input device that includes a scanner (image reading device) and an image processing device, and an output device that includes a printing device (image recording device) and a developing device.
The scanner photoelectrically reads light transmitted through an image photographed on a film by an image sensor, e.g., a CCD sensor, and transmits image data of the film (image data signal) to the image processing device. In the image processing device, predetermined image processing is performed for the image data and output image data for image recording (exposure conditions) is transmitted to the printing device.
When the printing device utilizes scan-exposure with a light beam, a light beam modulated on the basis of the supplied image data is deflected in a main scanning direction and a photosensitive material is scanned and conveyed in a sub-scanning direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction. In this way, the photosensitive material is scanned and exposed with a light beam, whereby a latent image is formed and a back print is recorded. In the developing device, the exposed photosensitive material is subjected to a predetermined development processing, whereby a print in which the image photographed on the film has been reproduced is formed.
In a printer, regardless of whether the printer is a digital photoprinter or an analog photoprinter, an elongated photosensitive material that is wound in a roll is used. The photosensitive material is pulled out from a magazine for accommodating the photosensitive material, exposed continuously without being cut and then developed and dried. Thereafter, the photosensitive material is cut into prints to make finished prints.
If the printing device is made to vibrate greater than a permissible range due to an external force (for example, a force impacting the device or an earthquake) acting on the printing device, the image of the image frame of the photosensitive material that was exposed during the vibration becomes unsatisfactory because of image unevenness.
Because the photosensitive material is continuously exposed with light without being cut, it is impossible to identify the image frame of the photosensitive material that was exposed when the vibration occurred. Accordingly, after finished prints are formed, images are checked to identify the image frame number that was unsatisfactory. The image of the corresponding image frame number is read again by the image sensor and the photosensitive material is re-exposed with the light obtained from the read data.
As described above, it is impossible to objectively determine whether or not the printing device was affected by the external force until images are checked. Further, the image corresponding to the image frame number that was rendered unsatisfactory as a result of the external force can only be identified by checking the images on the finished prints, which is inconvenient.